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2018 EUROPEAN LANGUAGE SURVEY RESULTS ANNOUNCED

The 2018 study of the European language industry conducted jointly by the EUATC, Elia, FIT Europe, GALA and LINDWeb shows a continuing confidence in future trading prospects following last year's study.

A record response compared to previous studies point to higher confidence in the market, from expected sales levels, recruitment plans and investment intentions to the expectation that 2018 prices will be stable.

Commenting, Rudy Tirry, President of the EUATC said:

"2018 is clearly the year of machine translation. This is the first year that more than half of the respondents declare that they are using the technology in one way or another. On the other hand, it is too soon to conclude that MT is now part of the translation reality, with only some 20% of the language service companies and independent language professionals reporting daily usage. Neural MT has clearly not yet brought the big change that the market is expecting.

"Changes to the technology questions are giving us a better view of the actual use of CAT, MT and other technologies by the various categories of respondents. New questions about internships have brought us additional insights in the way that the market is looking upon this important tool to bridge the gap between the universities and the professional world.

"Since its first edition in 2013, the survey is showing a remarkably stable picture of the challenges that the industry is reporting, both through the scores of the closed list of challenges and the open trend questions.

"Price pressure, competition that is often perceived as unfair, and technological advances that are not initiated or controlled by the respondents remain the main concerns that the language industry – like so many others - is struggling with."